Almanac

Menlo home sells for record $7.6M

In a sign that the local real estate market has rebounded, a house in Menlo Park last week sold for a record-setting $7.625 million with the sale closing only 11 days after the home went on the market.

Ken DeLeon of DeLeon Realty in Palo Alto co-listed the newly constructed house with Tom Dallas and David Kelsey of Intero Real Estate in Woodside. It's located on Robert S. Drive, a cul-de-sac off of Valparaiso Avenue near Sacred Heart Preparatory and close to downtown Menlo Park.

Mr. DeLeon said he also made two record-breaking sales in Palo Alto the same week, selling homes in Midtown and Community Center for record high prices for those neighborhoods.

Not only did the 6,270-square-foot home at 2 Robert S. Drive sell for a record amount, but the home was only on the market for three days before it was sold, Mr. DeLeon said. Escrow closed on Friday, March 30, for the home, which was listed 11 days earlier, on March 19, at $7.95 million. The sales price was equivalent to more than $1,200 per square foot of living space.

Mr. Dallas and Mr. Kelsey work out of Intero Real Estate's new Woodside office, which recently opened at 1580 Canada Lane. The Robert S. Drive home was the first listing, and first completed sale, in Intero's new estates division called Prestigio.

The buyer of the record-setting home was represented by Steve Niethammer of Zane MacGregor & Co. in Palo Alto.

Mr. DeLeon said the newly constructed home, which has six bedrooms, six-and-a-half baths, and is on a 20,000-square-foot lot, has been purchased by a high-tech entrepreneur who is relocating from overseas.

A real estate agent not connected with the sale confirmed that the Multiple Listing Service shows the sale is the highest on record in Menlo Park. The high sales price it replaces is also on the same street. That home, at 6 Robert S. Drive, sold for $7.4 million in April 2004.

Mr. DeLeon said the location and large lots on the street make it "the best street in Menlo Park."

The two record-setting sales in Palo Alto have not yet closed escrow, Mr. DeLeon said. But both homes sold in less than a week at more than the listed prices, he said. The home in the Community Center area was listed at $5,398,000 and the Midtown home was listed at $2,998,000, he said.

Go to tinyurl.com/Tour-0402 to see a virtual tour of the 2 Robert S. Drive house in Menlo Park from Intero Real Estate.

For those wondering how Robert S. Drive got its unusual name, Mr. DeLeon says the woman who first developed the street in the 1940s named it after her dead husband, Robert, whose middle initial was S.

This story contains 443 words.

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